Friday, April 6, 2018

Who Will Pay for Paid Family Leave?

Another fiscally ruinous entitlement is the last thing America needs.

The recent bipartisan budget agreement, which indicates that ten-digit deficits are acceptable to both parties even when the economy is robust, indicates government’s future. So does government’s pregnancy, which was announced nine months ago by this tweet from Senator Marco Rubio (R., Fla.): “In America, no family should be forced to put off having children due to economic insecurity.”

The phrase “due to economic insecurity” is a way to avoid saying “until they can afford them.” Evidently it is now retrograde to expect family planning to involve families making plans that fit their resources. Which brings us to the approaching birth of a new entitlement: paid family leave after the birth or adoption of a child. This arrival will coincide with gargantuan deficits produced primarily by existing entitlements.

Still, the president has promised to oppose House speaker Paul Ryan’s and his party’s proclaimed determination to address the entitlement crisis. And the president has endorsed paid family leave. Five states and the District of Columbia (and many other cities) have paid-leave laws, and at least 23 states are considering them. Naturally, given the nature of democratic politics, the national government’s portion of the political class is eager to truncate states’ experiments by making paid leave either an explicit national entitlement or an implicit one, by making states toe lines drawn in Washington.

Although this will advance the Left’s agenda of broadening and destigmatizing dependence on government, many conservatives support it in the name of “family values,” and because free stuff polls well. But it will not be free for someone, so the argument is about who should pay. So, the debate will concern ways to disguise the benefit’s costs while requiring others to pay for it.